


The Highest Rung

by BombshellKell



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-22
Updated: 2013-10-22
Packaged: 2017-12-30 04:39:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1014201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BombshellKell/pseuds/BombshellKell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Valentine's Day. Newt has no idea whether he and Hermann are in a relationship or not, but he's going to make sure they are by the end of the day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Highest Rung

**Author's Note:**

> Request from Anonymous Tumblr User: Could you write something sweet and fluffy. Maybe some kind of Valentines fic. I just need something cute that will make my day a little bit better. Thank you ♥
> 
> I hope you enjoy it, Anon!

Newt had never really celebrated Valentine’s day, but as February 14th wore on, he was starting to think it was somewhat of an obligation for people in relationships. 

Sasha and Aleksis were sporting flashy new rings and kissing a lot more than they normally did; Tendo was sitting at a table at breakfast smiling at a card from Alison. The triplets were all answering valentines sent to them from admirers in the city, and Chuck was looking even moodier than usual. More importantly, Newt hadn’t seen Hermann all morning, and wasn’t going to see him until Newt hauled their newest samples into the lab that evening. 

“Mako!” he called, rapping on her door. “Mako, Mako, Mako, MA-” 

She opened it, her eyes wide, wearing a t-shirt and pajama pants and obviously having gotten out of bed. “What? Are you alright?” 

“I need your help,” Newt said, pushing his way into her room without asking if it was alright. “So it’s, like, Valentine’s Day, right?” 

“Oh. Yes, it is.” Mako nodded, and Newt suspected she’d forgotten about it herself. “Did you get something to give to Dr. Gottlieb?” Her lips twitched upward.

“Uh...” Newt scratched the back of his head. “No. I mean, I never really celebrated Valentine’s Day when I didn’t have a date, and I haven’t had a date in forever.” Going to high school and college so much earlier than everyone else had its disadvantages. “So I kinda forgot about it.” 

Mako gave him a look that clearly told him he was in trouble. Then, she sighed. “I have some paper and things.” 

“Yes! You’re such a lifesaver! I’m gonna pay you back for this one day, I swear!” Newt took the paper stuff she handed him. Mako wasn’t exactly into arts and crafts, so they seemed to be miscellaneous scraps: some stationary, some tissue paper from gifts she’d received over the years. Some paper for origami. It’d work. Newt sat on her floor with his legs crossed under him and started cutting out shapes, hearts and wings and other things he figured were stereotypically Valentine’s Day related. Mako went into her bathroom to brush her teeth while he was working and came back out to sit on her bed. 

“...So... does that mean the two of you are...” 

“Shit, I dunno, Mako, I just know that we’ve reached a point in which he’d get pissed if I didn’t make him a stupid card.” 

“I think that’s an important point to reach.” 

“He still won’t let me use the B word. Or the L word. Or any word that could possibly let me know we’re, y’know, dating.” Newt frustratedly cut out a crude heart shape from some pink tissue paper, paper that had stuffed Mako’s birthday present’s bag the previous year. 

Mako nodded, getting up to comb her hair out in her little wall mirror. “Well, tell me how it goes.” 

“If it goes.” Newt stared down at his cut-out shapes and Sharpie writing and wondered if he should have just let Hermann get mad. 

\- - - 

Newt got into the lab with the tanks a few minutes before Hermann said he’d be there. He pushed the new samples into the lab by himself, shoving them over onto his side of the room with the others, before doing the unthinkable and stepping over the hazmat tape onto Hermann’s side. 

It was like stepping into an office furniture display, everything pristine and proper. There was no sign whatsoever that someone actually worked there; he turned off all his computers and devices at the end of the day, and once, Newt had even caught him dusting. He felt so out of place that he double-checked every few steps to make sure he hadn’t knocked something over. 

He didn’t want to get caught on Hermann’s side, so he walked over past the elevated section of the area and over to the huge, multi-layered chalkboard and its ladder. He considered just putting the card on the bottom of the chalkboard, where the chalk pieces were, but ultimately he wanted to be more creative than that. 

Newt put the card between his teeth and climbed the ladder, past equations and formulas, all the way up to the top, where he propped the card on the highest rung, next to the last bit of empty chalkboard left on this side, on this layer. He arranged it to make sure it was absolutely visible before he heard the door open, and scrambled back down the ladder as quickly as he could. 

“What are you doing on my side of the room?” Hermann grumbled immediately, as Newt stepped gracefully over onto the other side. 

“Nothin’, I was just... I saw a fly in here, I was kinda chasing it. I got it, don’t worry.” He returned to his biggest examination table, where a preserved piece of kaiju heart was waiting for him and his scalpel. He didn’t put on any rubber gloves or start working on separating it, though, since he was expecting a need to use his hands pretty soon. If all went well. 

Hermann snorted. “With all of the dead things lying around here, its no wonder there’s flies. They must think this is heaven.” He went over to the holographic model and turned it on. Newt looked impatiently over at the chalkboard, the card a little shock of pink at the top of it. 

“Hey, uh, Hermann?” 

“What?” Hermann raised his eyebrows, looking over at Newt from his chair in front of the holograph. 

“While I was, uh... trying to get the fly... I think I left my flyswatter on the top of your ladder.” Yes, a perfectly legitimate story. “Could you go get it for me and toss it over here?” 

Hermann gave him a flat look. “Is there any reason you can’t get it yourself?” 

“Well, I mean, I would, but...” Newt put a fist on his hip. “That would mean I’d have to go over onto your side of the room. And I’m not allowed to do that.” He nodded, confident in his reply. Hermann rolled his eyes but realized that he couldn’t uphold his own rules and still force Newt to get the hypothetical flyswatter himself, and so he got up and went over to the ladder. 

Newt bobbed a little on the balls of his feet, waiting as Hermann hung his cane on one of the ladder’s lower rungs and climbed up it. When he got up to the top, Newt couldn’t look any more, and focused his attention determinedly on selecting a scalpel to use on the heart segment. 

He heard Hermann’s footsteps coming down the ladder, heard the solid taps of his cane on the floor as he moved over the tape to Newt’s side of the room. Newt swiveled his gaze over to him as he came to a halt next to the examination table, holding the card up. 

“...Can I help you?” Newt asked lightly. 

“Newton, what is this?” 

“It’s.... a card. Y’know, for Valentine’s Day, or whatever...” 

“Because...?” 

“Cause...” Shit. Newt hadn’t anticipated all of these questions. He thought Hermann would love it unquestioningly and there would be hugging and kissing and stuff. He didn’t know why he thought that, now that he considered it. “Cause we... do stuff... and I thought maybe you might...”

“You thought I might want to stabilize our relationship with a Valentine’s Day card clearly made out of Mako’s origami paper and some gift wrap?” Hermann was visibly trying not to smile. 

That was a pretty good way to put it, Newt thought. “Well, yeah,” he said, watching Hermann’s smile carefully, to gauge if he was going to get smacked for smiling himself. This was weird; he could probably count how many times Hermann has actually smiled, not smirked, on one hand, in five years. “Did it work?” 

“What do you think?” Newt looked up, and then Hermann was kissing him, and for the first time Newt was the one being kissed instead of the other way around. He dropped the scalpel into the dish on the table and wound his arms around Hermann’s neck, then slid one down to his lower back so he could lean all his weight against Newt if he wanted to. Newt smiled so widely that he had to break the kiss, leaning his head against Hermann’s shoulder so that he wouldn’t see the grin. 

“I think we’re in a relationship or something. Happy Valentine’s Day.” 

Hermann was smiling; Newt couldn’t see it, but he could hear it in his voice when he said, “If you insist, Newton.”


End file.
